Small Wonders

Small Wonders is an exhibition of photographs that are diminutive in size, yet masterful in execution. As the title implies, none of the pieces in the exhibition is larger than 4x5 inches. Although it has become fashionable to make massive photographs, the small—in some cases tiny—pictures in this exhibition offer a different kind of viewing experience. We must slow our pace and look more closely. As we do so, we can see how these artists have used elegant pictorial structure and exquisite control of detail to create quiet images that offer a concentrated form of visual pleasure. Featured artists include Brassaï, Wynn Bullock, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, Andre Kertész, Dorothea Lange, Artur Nikodem, ringl+pit, Aaron Siskind, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, James Van Der Zee, David Vestal, Edward Weston, and Minor White.

The New YorkerJuly 24, 2006

This terrific show of little photographs is proof that connoisseurship isn't suspended for the summer months. With forty-five pieces, a few no larger than postage stamps, it rounds up fine work by Edward Weston, Helen Levitt, Dorothea Lange, Man Ray, Alexander Rodchenko, and others for whom issues of scale were a lot less fraught than they are today. The intimacy of these pictures is ingratiating, but it wouldn't count for much if the images themeselves weren't exceptional, including several miniature masterpieces and at least one lovely surprise: Walter Auerbach's view of Willem de Kooning's studio, circa 1950, with drawings littering the floor and an unfinished painting of a woman on the far wall.